Rory McIlroy waiting on the 15th tee during the final round of the 2011 Master, when his epic collapse cost him the green jacket. / Michael Madrid, USA TODAY Sports

by Nancy Armour, USA TODAY Sports

by Nancy Armour, USA TODAY Sports

A year after his game was derailed by equipment changes, Rory McIlroy arrives at the Masters showing glimpses of the form that once made him the heir apparent to Tiger Woods.

"Mind, body, equipment, it's all there. There's no excuses," McIlroy said this week. "It's just about not getting ahead of yourself and just letting all the practice and all the work that you've put in come out in your execution, and just get out of your own way."

McIlroy's success as a young teenager made him the latest in a long line of golfers who were going to challenge Woods. Sergio Garcia or Anthony Kim, anyone? And as the 2012 season ended, he appeared on the verge of fulfilling that promise.

The Northern Irishman had won the PGA Championship, his second major and one of four wins that year, and finished atop the rankings and the money list. He also delivered a key point on the final as Europe rallied to retain the Ryder Cup.

But McIlroy struggled after switching to Nike equipment as part of a massive endorsement deal, and spent all of 2013 trying to adjust. He finished without a win for the first time since 2009, and had only five top-10s.

"It makes it easier these days when you have two majors in the bag," said McIlroy, who turns 25 next month. "Not that you don't care as much, but it's not the end of the world. You know that you will have more opportunities."

That confidence has been rewarded this season.

He hasn't won -- yet --â?? but he has three top-10 finishes, including a tie for second at the Honda Classic six weeks ago. Perhaps most telling, he closed last week's Shell Houston Open with a 65 on Sunday.

McIlroy's life off the course is in good shape, too. On New Year's, he and longtime girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki got engaged. The tennis star is with him at the Masters, and was his caddie again in the Par-3 Contest on Wednesday.

"I like him," ESPN analyst Curtis Strange said Wednesday. "I think he's playing better and he's probably hungry. I would be after the year he had two years ago and then wasn't in top form last year.

"We know how explosive he is when he gets going, and we know he can play here," Strange added. "So I like him."

McIlroy has never finished better than 15th at Augusta National, and that came in 2011 after one of the more epic collapses in Masters history.

Atop the leaderboard after each of the first three rounds, he stepped to the 10th tee Sunday with a one-stroke cushion. But his drive ricocheted between two of the club's famous cabins, and few will forget the sight of him trudging into the trees after his ball, 100 yards off the fairway.

He would finish the hole with a 7, his lead turned into a two-stroke deficit. He three-putted for a bogey on 11, and completed his meltdown when he snapped his tee shot on 13 into Rae's Creek. As fans -- at Augusta National and watching on TV -- groaned, McIlroy bent over, leaning his head on top of his three-wood.

The next morning, he broke down and cried in a phone call to his mother.

"That's probably the only time I've cried over golf," he said.

But instead of being haunted by his meltdown, it made McIlroy stronger. Two months later, he won his first major, at the U.S. Open.

Did it in record fashion, no less, his 16-under-par the lowest score in the 115-year history of that tournament.

"I have no ill feelings toward 2011. It was a very important day in my career," McIlroy said.

"And I don't know, if I had not have had that day, would I be the person and the player that I am, sitting here, because I learned so much from it," he said. "I learned exactly what not to do under pressure and contention, and I definitely learned from that day how to handle my emotions better on the course."